With recent advances in digital transmission technology, subscriber television systems are now capable of providing much more than traditional analog broadcast video. In implementing enhanced programming, the set-top box or set-top terminal (STT) has become an important computing device for accessing content services (and content within those services) and navigating a user through a maze of available services. In addition to supporting traditional analog broadcast video functionality, STTs now also support an increasing number of two-way digital services such as video-on-demand and personal video recording.
Typically, a STT is coupled to a cable or satellite, or generally, a subscriber television system, and includes hardware and software necessary to provide the functionality of the digital television system at a user's site. Some of the software executed by a STT can be downloaded and/or updated via the subscriber television system. Each STT also typically includes a processor, communication components, and memory, and is connected to a television or other display device, such as a personal computer. While many conventional STTs are stand-alone devices that are externally connected to a television set, a STT and/or its functionality may be integrated into a television set or personal computer or even an audio device such as a programmable radio, as will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art.
Many STTs located in subscriber television systems today are available with an electronic program guide (EPG) that is presented on a display device (e.g., TV) in a grid view. Typically, the grid view includes television channel or service identifiers (e.g., broadcast channel numbers and/or service identifiers, such as ABC, CNN, etc.) listed on one border of the grid along a vertical axis of the EPG, and time (e.g., time of content presentation or availability for viewing) in defined increments (e.g., increments of one half hour) listed on another border of the grid along the horizontal axis. Titles of content instances (e.g., programs, such as movies, episodes of television shows, sports events or other entertainment events, etc.) are shown within the borders of the grid in blocks, each block defined by the channel and duration of time the content instance is available for presentation.
Users typically navigate through the grid to view what programs are available at any given time and/or to learn more about the program title listed in a desired block. For instance, a user can use an infrared (IR) remote control device to scroll or page down the channel listings. As more and more types of programming become available to subscribers, the number of channels to scroll through increases as well. Although various “shortcuts” (e.g., SKIP and BACK keys on a remote) have been implemented in the past to shorten the navigation time though an EPG, given the hundreds of channels to choose from, it may still take up to approximately a minute to reach a channel of interest. Since performance is important to users, a common complaint is that existing scroll mechanisms are simply too slow. This perceived shortcoming is further aggravated by the fact that many STTs are low-cost embedded platforms, with application performance bounded by low central processor unit (CPU) MIPs (million instructions per second), and further aggravated by the existence of platforms that use the same CPU for processing audio/video (A/V) packets as is used for implementing applications.